And Down They Tumbled
by Auntleona0
Summary: No one's ever ready for the drop, the moment the rug reveals a trap door and you go tumbling down into the abyss of grief. But all wars come with losses, and Sirius Black is about to face up to his. [An interpretation of canon events in the year 1980, featuring oodles of platonic Lily & Sirius]


**A/N: This one-shot falls within the universe of my completed, multi-chapter story,** _ **The Bet**_ **as I'm writing a few one-shots to fill time while I prep for my next multi-chapter story. No understanding or prior reading of** _ **The Bet**_ **is necessary to read & understand this one-shot as it's set many years out from **_**The Bet**_ **and reinterprets canon events.**

 **I hope everyone, new & old readers alike, enjoy.**

 **TW: for canon character death.**

* * *

"Fuck!"

Wheeling back from the stove, Lily nursed her burnt finger. The oven mitt that she'd been using to shield her hands had slipped one crucial centimeter and the side of her finger had made direct contact with the boiling pot. Pain or no pain, the water was still boiling over and since she didn't want a mess of frothing bubbles and overcooked potatoes on her hand, she forced herself to pull out her wand and move the pot onto the counter.

"Language!" Sirius called out as if scandalized from where he was sitting at the dining table, spooning uncooked dough into his mouth. "Think of the baby's poor, little ears!"

"The baby hasn't developed ear drums yet," Lily snapped, still in too much pain to play nice.

"Really?" Sirius asked curiously. "If that's the case, what's this here?"

Sirius gestured to an indistinguishable blur on the ultrasound photo, which had been developed that very morning. There was no need for a healthy witch to have an ultrasound, of course, as magical healing methods were far more effective, but Lily hadn't been given much of a choice in the matter. Once Sirius heard that muggles were able to take photographs of the growing baby, Sirius had frogmarched her to the nearest gynecologist – a sight that must have looked ridiculous as Lily was starting to show, her steps slowing and stomach swinging.

Sitting on the examination table with her stomach chilled from the gel and Sirius peering over her shoulder at the screen where the pictures were displayed, anyone would have thought Sirius was the father. And they did.

First it was explaining to the doctor (and the nurse and the receptionist and the mother accompanying her daughter for her first pap smear) that, no, Sirius was not the father. Then, it was hurrying to add that the father, her _husband_ , was still in the picture to alleviate their judgmental stares. Then, it was clarifying that her husband was not overseas, in the military, or on a business trip and was probably hanging out with his friends at home, followed by their bewildered and piteous looks about her wastrel of a husband, who wouldn't even accompany her to the OBGYN. Lily couldn't exactly correct them by saying he saw no reason to venture out to a muggle town for a needless procedure, so by the end of it, Lily was certain her doctor thought she was in a polyamorous relationship with both James and SIrius and that the paternity was definitely in question.

(Honestly, sometimes Lily thought the doctor wasn't far off, what with the way Sirius had never recognized a single boundary as he wiggled his way into her marriage.)

"Too bad James isn't here to kiss it and make it better," Sirius sighed unhelpfully.

"Yeah, too bad," Lily said, still short-tempered from the shock of her burn.

"Want me to do the honors instead?"

Sirius followed up on this offer by moving forward like he intended to suck her finger into his mouth. Scrambling to put some distance between them, Lily ran to the other side of the table. Sirius followed. His legs were substantially longer than hers, so it was easy for him to catch her on her second lap around the table.

"Don't you dare!" Lily howled.

She spotted a ladle on the table and picked it up so that she could brandish it menacingly in Sirius's direction. Scoffing at the very idea that a mere utensil could stop him, Sirius persisted, grabbing her injured hand and drawing it to his face. All the while, Lily beat him repeatedly with the – unfortunately clean – ladle. Her blows started at his arm, but as his lips drew nearer to her hand, Lily moved with him, turning her attacks to his soft, eggshell of a skull.

Only a centimeter from his mouth, Sirius dropped her hand. "Any other finger, and I would have done it, but alas, fraternal loyalty wins out."

Impossible to miss on her burnt finger was the light-catching platinum of her wedding ring, a far too ostentatious piece that was passed down the Potter line and which she had worn religiously for months.

Even though Sirius released her, Lily thwacked him on the head once more for good measure before returning to the potatoes. She ignored Sirius as he smugly pointed out that he'd distracted her to the point that she'd forgotten the pain of her burn. Much like with James, Lily had adopted a policy of never encouraging Sirius's behavior by admitting when he was right. She was still paying for the few, foolish times that she had forgotten this golden rule with James.

These domestic moments alone with Sirius had become a lot more common of late and the reasons, as far as Lily could discern, were threefold. Firstly, Sirius's excitement over the baby meant he couldn't stand to be away from Lily – or, more accurately, Lily's bulging belly – for long periods of time; she'd lost count of how many times she'd woken from a nap on the couch to find Sirius with a hand pressed to her stomach or watching her sleep. (Which was creepier, she hadn't yet decided.) Then, there was the fact that Remus was almost always out of commission these days. He was either undercover in the hell that was the werewolf underground or sleeping it off at headquarters, surly and withdrawn from all he'd witnessed. Finally, there was Dumbledore's decision to unpartner James and Sirius on missions, which meant James was often away when Sirius was left at home and vice versa. The stated reason for this policy shift had been that other, weaker members could benefit from their talents and that they themselves would grow by working with senior Order members, but Lily suspected that it was really because they made each other reckless. Lily had read once about how some muggle militaries would never pair brothers in an operation. That way, if the worst were to happen, there would be no letters home to say that a family had lost everything, and Lily didn't need to stretch her imagination to see the parallel to her own situation.

Tonight was one of those nights where James was on a mission. In the past month Lily had become a lot better at bearing his absences, her worry only buzzed at a low hum, something she could ignore in favor of racing around the kitchen or cooking a meal for the Order members camped out in her guest bedrooms. She would have preferred to do something more useful, of course, but there was no arguing with James or Sirius or any of the others from the long line of men queuing up to lecture her. To risk her own life was one thing. To risk her son's (and oh, how wonderful it was to think that when the gender was still a secret from all but James) life was something else entirely.

So, she was trapped in her house, while James played the hero. For the dozenth time, Lily reminded herself that it was only a routine pickup and not any cause for concern. He'd be home in an hour, maybe two.

"You know, I'm pretty sure I asked you to bake these and not just devour the dough like you have a black pit where your stomach ought to be," Lily groused.

With a perfectly pleased grin, Sirius doled another spoonful of cookie dough into his mouth.

"You had to know this was going to happen," Sirius said, mouth still half full.

She had.

"We have to feed the Jones's and Dorcas and Mr. Diggle tonight," Lily said, listing off the order members who were currently using her house as a way-station. "I'd like some help."

"I don't want to," Sirius whinged.

"And you think I do?" Absently, Lily thought that moments like these were evidence that she was going to be an exemplary mother. What, after all, was Sirius except a stretched out child, who'd learned too many dirty jokes? "Do I look like some kind of, some kind of Henrietta Homemaker to you? A cooking Cathy? ...A Kitchen Kimberly?"

"It's uncanny how you know exactly what I call you in private. Have you been eavesdropping?" Sirius teased even as he stood up to help.

Sometimes, Lily felt selfish for asking for help – emotional or otherwise – when James and Sirius were already doing their part. They went on missions and risked their lives, only to return home to her demands for assistance. While, in comparison, she only organized and coded the Order's letters and kept house for whoever needed it that day. Occasionally, she'd be given the opportunity to brew something complicated that would be used in the fight. Then, she'd spend a morning on her knees in the bathroom or her son would decide to kick her in the bladder twenty times a minute for three hours straight, and she'd decide that she was entirely justified.

Sirius helped himself to an apron off the coat rack. She and James had a couple set. One read 'I'm the Lucky One' on the bibbed front, and the other, 'And I Got Duped.' Half her time in the kitchen with James was spent arguing over who got to wear which. Sirius opted for the one about getting lucky without complaints.

The fireplace flared bright green.

When a head of closely-cropped blonde hair emerged instead of the messy locks she was expecting, Lily tensed. Irrational as it was, some part of her – the muggle, superstitious bit that had never stopped listening for hooves on the roof on Christmas Eve – believed that every time she imagined James coming home, she decreased the likelihood he actually would.

Instead of James, Maurice MacDougal and Mad Eye Moody climbed over the low gate of the fireplace and into her kitchen.

MacDougal was, at first glance, the polar opposite of his disheveled partner. The auror was tall and clean with a chin so sharp he claimed he'd once blinded a death eater by using it to poke him in the eye. A tad standoffish, MacDougal had still come around to the Potters for tea on two occasions and proved himself a nice enough bloke that their fireplace had been declared always open for him.

And then there was Mad Eye...Lily could never find much to say to the eccentric auror other than 'Hello' and 'please, won't you stop pointing that wand at me?' While Lily liked to keep Moody at a respectful distance, James was barmy over the man, constantly declaring that their child would be the best behaved boy in Britain because he'd know that bad boys were fed to Old Mad Eye. With his patchwork body and penchant for barking at anyone who displeased him, Moody certainly filled the role of a bogeyman.

"Alright, gents? Here for supper?" Sirius called amiably. Asking questions, like 'why' and 'where are you coming from' were rarely met with answers in the Order, so none of them bothered.

Having known Moody for the better part of two years now, Lily unearthed her wand and pointed it at the two interlopers. Anything to avoid Moody's patented lecture on vigilance. Only after they'd exchanged enough information to satisfy any doubts of their identities did Lily return her wand to the holster at her wrist.

Rather than venture further inside, the legendary partners remained by the fireplace. Surprised by their recalcitrance, Lily studied them further and saw the last thing any person, least of all a pregnant wife, wanted to see from two aurors paying an unexpected visit: sympathy.

Seeing it, too, Sirius sprang to his feet.

"Perhaps you'd like to sit down," MacDougal prompted.

Rather than sit, Lily practically collapsed into the counter. Every horrific scenario she'd ever imagined came rushing to her mind, clear as if she was watching these events happen on the telly. They were here to tell her that James was dead. She knew it even as her very being rioted and rejected the possibility. Because James had vowed that he'd never leave her. He'd be the one person in her life who stayed through it all, and despite all the atrocities she'd witnessed over the past three years, she couldn't accept that the world was cruel enough to separate them like this now.

While her moment of panic felt endless, it actually lasted for a matter of seconds. Then, she was croaking out her husband's name as a question, and Sirius was gripping her elbow for support so hard that the bone ached.

"Don't go dissolving into hysterics. Potter's fine," Moody said.

The two aurors still looked dour, indicating that the news they brought was still ugly, but Lily couldn't help but bask in the moment of relief. Her stomach trembled, and Lily thought her son must have sensed the tragedy they'd escaped, too.

"I'm afraid we're actually here about your brother," MacDougal informed Sirius.

Lily listened with a heart that had sank from her chest and taken residence in her knees as MacDougal explained what had befallen Regulus. The little they knew at least as information on Death Eaters in disfavor was rare. She couldn't remember a single time at Hogwarts when she'd spoken to Regulus Black, but she'd seen him, like everyone else. He'd been stately and sneering in his later years, giving the impression his idea of fun was vanishing galleons and reading the Black family history in the dark. There'd been a time before that though, when he was an adolescent with a boy's laugh that would appear to escape him against his will every time his older brother said something funny.

Said big brother now stood beside her, looking as dead as Regulus...was. Dead, dead, gone. Lily wondered if it made her an awful person that she could still find some modicum of relief in the fact that the news wasn't about Regulus slaughtering an office of muggles. The judgment that normally told her the loss of an innocent life was worse than the loss of a corrupt one was fuzzy just then, however, because the severity (dead was dead was dead) was threatening to swallow her whole. Even the word was ugly in this new world where Regulus Black was no more. Dead. It sounded plodding and empty as a corpse.

Moody and MacDougal didn't linger after demolishing her world. Lily was grateful as she acknowledged Siruis would need to grieve, and to cry in front of two men he considered mentors would be another slice to the wound that was already gushing blood and staining her hardwood floors. (Figuratively, of course, because if Sirius's wound existed on the physical plane, then Lily might have been able to fix it and such a wonderful state of affairs was not to be.)

She waited patiently, head bowed and lips pressed together in a show of silent sympathy. Sirius would cry, he would rage, and then he would quiet. There was nothing she could do to help him through this process. As close as they'd grown, she wasn't James. All there was to do was wait until her husband arrived home, and then she could remove herself from the picture, have a cry of her own, and wait for the morning when Sirius's wounds weren't quite so fresh.

Except, Sirius wasn't crying at all. Instead, he did what she perhaps should have expected from the start and stalked toward the front door. The hem of his apron peeked out from beneath the winter robes that he haphazardly tossed on.

"Where are you going?" Lily demanded.

It was a ridiculous question, one that hardly warranted an answer, and Sirius only provided her with a terse: "Out."

The sound of the front door slamming into the wall, leaving a little fissure at the impact, resonated throughout the room and more deeply into Lily's heart. She knew where Sirius was going, and she also knew that if she let him leave, they very well might never see each other again. One man, twenty-years-old and with no plan, couldn't best the Dark Lord. The best he could manage was to die.

The urgency of the situation filled her with more energy than she'd experienced since the end of her first trimester. Gone were the thoughts of her swollen feet and aching back, replaced by singular purpose. James would fix everything. Her job was to keep Sirius alive and intact until James returned, nothing more and nothing less.

Lily followed him out the door.

"Don't you walk away from me, Sirius Black," Lily barked. Never would she have anticipated that she'd be snapping at Sirius only minutes after news of the death of his brother. Coddling whispers would have been more appropriate, but Sirius had never been one to make things easy.

Sirius barely spared her a sneering glance.

"You don't have the first idea where to go, do you?" Lily persisted, huffing as she sped up to keep pace with his longer strides.

They'd reached the end of the long path that wound from the front of the house to the gate of the estate before Sirius truly looked at her. When he did, the little bit of color that remained in his face, that last vestige of life after the introduction of death's shadowy presence in their home, was sucked away.

"Fuck, Lily. Go back inside the house. It's bloody freezing out, and you're not even wearing a coat," Sirius ordered.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Lily replied flippantly.

The month had only just changed and they were experiencing the wintry side of March. There were still piles of snow on the other side of the gate from the storm that had blown past three weeks before and her fingers were dry and chapped like they always became in the colder months of the year.

Sensing that Sirius's concern might represent a softening on his part, Lily laid her hand on his elbow and pleaded, "You know I can't let you be alone right now. Just come back inside and we'll talk, or not talk. Whatever you need. And once James is home, everything will be better."

"You should go inside, or you'll be cold, and it's not good for you or the baby," Sirius said gently, and his voice was packed with meaning that she couldn't begin to interpret. He squeezed her hand, the one that was gripping his elbow, like her insubstantial weight might anchor him to the property. "Tell James that he needs to stop favoring his left side when he fights and keep his neck on a swivel."

Then, he dropped her hand. The crack of apparition filled the quiet street, frightening a nearby flock of finches into flight.

Not that Lily was there to see it. When the scenery of Grimmauld Place appeared for Sirius, he found a royally brassed off Lily Evans, clinging to the sleeve of his robes.

"Buggering hell, Evans! Do you know how easy it would have been to splinch you, just now? Fuck!" Sirius shouted.

"You should have thought of that before you tried to run away, you great, big jerk! What kind of goodbye is 'stop favoring your left side?' You seriously wanted me to say that to James when he gets back? 'I let Sirius run off and get himself blown up, but don't worry, he had some heartfelt parting words for you?'" Lily yelled right back.

"I'm taking you back home," Sirius growled.

"Good."

"And then I'm leaving you there."

"You can try," Lily snarled. "What is your plan, anyway? Ransack his old room? Shake your parents down for clues? What, Sirius?"

"Someone in that house will know something that I can use to find a death eater," Sirius growled. "And then I'll go from there."

The wind picked up, beating a tempo of heartbreak and misery against her bare arms, but the goosebumps that arose weren't due to the cold. 'Any death eater.' Sirius had no intention of insinuating himself into the heart of the Death Eaters so that he could try his own against Voldemort. He knew he wouldn't get that far. No, he planned to throw himself in the path of enemy after enemy until one managed to do him in and he could join Regulus, stop feeling like his world had careened to a halt.

The very idea made Lily furious.

"Well, okay then, let's go!" Lily said. "We'll face them all together."

"Don't be stupid," Sirius said. She could see his hand tense in his pocket where it must have been gripping his wand, prepping to apparate her back to safety, where she was sure to lose him.

"If you want to die, I won't stop you," Lily whispered, and they were the most painful words she'd ever had to utter aloud. Worse than when she'd given the eulogy at her parents' funeral, worse than when she'd said goodbye to Tuney forever, worse than when she'd told James she was pregnant and they'd both faced the dread of bringing a life into a world beset by so much violence. "But I won't let you go alone."

Grief could be a blinding force, true, but it could also provide startling moments of clarity, and Lily couldn't prevent Sirius from acting on whatever it was he perceived. But, that didn't mean she wasn't going to use every weapon in her arsenal to slow him down and give him a moment to reconsider. She'd do it for James, and she'd do it for Sirius, but most of all, she would do it for herself because Sirius had become an integral part of her life and there'd be no recovery if she lost him now.

"You can't be putting yourself into dangerous situations right now," Sirius said harshly. "I know you're a bleeding heart, but you need to walk away and think of your baby."

Lily jutted her chin out and raised up on her tip toes so that she could look him squarely in the eyes, "No, you need to think of my baby because I promise you I won't. I'm not going to physically prevent you from running off and getting yourself killed, but I will be coming along, and yes, that means I'll probably die. Yes, it means that James will have lost his best friend and his wife in a single day. And yes, it means my baby will die right alongside us, but that's your choice, Sirius Black. Not mine. So, you best think carefully before you make any rash decisions!"

She followed her speech by immediately drawing her wand because she had no doubts that Sirius's mind was even now coursing with ideas for how he could disable her and drop her out of harm's way before continuing his suicide mission.

"I can't - Don't do this to me. Please," Sirius pleaded, the first time he'd ever begged her for anything.

"You know I'd give you anything right now...but not this," Lily replied back, equally broken. "Please, Sirius. Think of my son and come home."

Sirius's lips spasmed, the veneer of strength that he'd shown since learning about his brother's death cracking at her words and leaving him soft and bare as a newborn baby. " _Son_? You're having a son?" Sirius choked out, like it was the most overwhelming word in his vocabulary, one twice as impactful as any magical, Latin incantation.

"Yes," Lily nodded and her own voice warbled around her answer. "And I'd really like for him to meet his godfather someday."

Long-discussed with James, offering godfather to Sirius was the final weapon in her arsenal of emotional manipulation, and she watched as the bullet – or more accurately grenade – landed its target and Sirius's knees shook under the force of it. She could see his surprise, unlikely as it was that they would have named someone else. Silly to be shocked as it wasn't like Vernon would be lining up for the title, after all. They were in a war where the sides kept vacillating, waving and blurring depending on the day, and her circle of trusted friends was growing slimmer each day. That said, she'd never once doubted Sirius. He was the only choice.

Without waiting for his consent, Lily wrapped her hand around the stunned man's wrist and apparated them back to the Potter estate. A network of spells had been layered over the house to keep out unwanted guests both of the nefarious and neighbor with a sugar bowl sort, but the house recognized Lily and opened up to her instantly. She trudged up the path with Sirius's hand firmly in her grip, Sirius following along as compliant as a child promised a holiday to Disneyland. In that manner, she was able to get Sirius up the stairs (thankfully without running into any of her house guests), out of his robes, and into bed.

Once she'd tucked him in so tightly that he'd need assistance crawling out from under his blankets the next morning, Lily asked, "Would you like me to make you something to help you sleep? I can have something ready in maybe fifteen minutes."

"No, thank you," Sirius said numbly.

Lily knew perfectly well what the first night was like after a loved one died unexpectedly. She'd born that pain after her parents' fatal car crash, and the sleeping potions that her friends had showered upon her had been the only thing that kept her alive. Those blissful, dreamless hours where her brain was able to grieve and recuperate without her memories threatening to swallow her whole. While Sirius may want to process everything without, she would make sure there was a ready stock in case he changed his mind.

Lily prepared to leave the room, extinguishing all the candles so that the room was dark. Black. She lingered for a moment to look at Sirius's bundled form, half-lit from the light of the hallway and silently prayed for Sirius to find hope. For James to return home soon. For Regulus's soul to find peace.

Just before she closed the door, she heard it: the half-regretted mewl of pain that indicated Sirius was crying. For a valiant half minute, Sirius held his breath and prevented any noise from escaping his mouth, but it was all in vain, and Lily heard it when he began to cry in earnest.

She couldn't leave.

Decided, Lily shut the door with her body on the wrong side of the partition and returned to the bed. She settled right atop the quilt and leaned into her bereaved friend. Arms tucked by his side, Sirius couldn't make any move to accept or reject her gesture, so Lily took the lead, sitting up so that she could hold Sirius's head to her chest just like her mum had done for her countless times when she was young. With a flat palm, she rubbed the top of his head with soothing circles. Sirius didn't stop crying. And unseen by him, Lily joined right along.

They sat like that for a long time. Long enough that Sirius ran out of tears for his brother – a short reprieve as he was sure to find new ones come morning – and Lily fell asleep where she sat, his silkily maintained hair gripped in her fist.

She awoke what felt like minutes later, but was more accurately an hour of uninterrupted sleep. James stood in the doorway, an amused smirk on his lips and both hands on his hips. Looking at James always brought on a sense of familiarity, the walking representation of her home, but the sense of relief that went through her at the sight of him then was much more than was typical. She and Sirius were friends, and she could give him all the comfort at her disposal, but they weren't family without James.

"I always knew you were stepping out on me together. I just thought you'd have the decency not to do it in my own house," James said.

Sirius tried to play it off, laughing as normally as he could given the circumstances (which happened to be wooden and not convincing at all). If that wasn't enough, Lily took one look at Sirius and her husband and promptly burst into tears.

"Fuck. Who is it?" James said instantly.

Sirius didn't try to hide it. "Rex."

It took James less than a second to process before he growled, "That reckless motherfucker."

While Lily gaped at the shocking declaration, Sirius chuckled and added, "That pigeon-brained cock."

James' instincts when it came to Sirius were rarely wrong, and the crude back-and-forth seemed to breath some new life into the room, like they had been languishing in the festering coffin of Regulus this whole time, the room transformed into a putrid and stifling box in which they were just waiting to die.

Following those same unerring instincts, James did the only thing to do, kicking off his shoes and crawling into the bed on the other side of Sirius from Lily. Their hands met behind his head and Lily clung to it. She gave her husband a watery smile, one that couldn't begin to convey her relief at seeing him after all that had happened. Surprising her once again, James gave her one of his own, one so wrought with relief that Lily knew he suspected how close he had come to losing his own brother that night.

"Regulus was an undeniable shit, but he had great taste in shoes," James said unexpectedly.

"Hardly. He kept those things shining just so he could stare at his own reflection whenever he looked down. Vain and self-obsessed. Add it to the list," Sirius said.

"The list?" Lily questioned, feeling like she'd fallen asleep and missed a vital piece of conversation.

"The everything wrong with Regulus list," Sirius said, like it was obvious.

O...kay. Not the most conventional way to grieve, but then again, her boys were hardly ordinary.

When James looked at her expectantly, Lily tried to follow the same model of layering an insult with a compliment. "While Regulus was an obnoxious punk, he had...ugh, really great posture. I always noticed. It really lended itself to a great presence."

James nodded solemnly. "Too true. Very straight back on that one."

"That's because mummy would hit us with a stinging hex if we slouched for a second. Got pretty good at never relaxing for a second in that house," Sirius said. "Of course, I abandoned all that the second I left home out of sheer spite, and Regulus followed his lessons like a good boy, so we'll be adding mummy's boy to the list. Good one, Evans."

"Do you remember when he first entered Hogwarts and he was always tailing us?" James asked. "We wanted nothing to do with a first-year, and we could never shake him. That was when we first came up with the idea for the Marauders Map, talking about how cool it would be if we could always spot where he was in the castle and take evasive measures."

"Course, by the time we created it he no longer wanted anything to do with a bunch of Gryffindor blood traitors," Sirius said.

"Merlin! And he was obsessed with that book series back then too. Do you remember? Every time we saw him he was acting out one of the characters, and he was always trying to make us play along," James said, caught up in the memories and no longer making an effort to disparage Regulus. "What were those books called, anyway?"

" _The Fortuitous Meetings of Silas and Harry_ ," Sirius answered. "I'd just about forgotten until now. He was bloody mad about those books. Never shut his mouth about them for longer than it took to take a bite of food."

"Did you ever play with him?" Lily asked.

James' hand sprang to his hair in his trademark tell of embarrassment and Lily could feel the rumble of Sirius's laughter against her chest where he rested.

"Well, I mean...it would have been rude to, you know, _never_ play with the kid," James said.

"James just doesn't want to admit that he always played the mule. I got to be the villain, and a right cool one and that, and Remus would take Silas."

"It wasn't a mule," James told Lily urgently, like it was very important she understood. "It was a horse, and a very noble one at that. Very vital to the plot."

"He used to whinny," Sirius whispered conspiratorially.

"So that left Regulus with what? Harry?" Lily asked and when James nodded, continued. "What were the books about?"

"Same thing all children's books are about, I suppose," James shrugged. "Escaping into a fantasy world where you're responsible for the good or evil that comes next. Silas and Harry were two boys who were always meeting up with wizards in need and saving the day with cleverness and friendship."

"Kid wizards. That's very important. There were no adults to be seen," Sirius added.

"It sounds very wholesome," Lily said.

Lily tried to picture Regulus interested in anything so childish, so unsophisticated. Based on her own memories of what little boys could be like, she was left with the mental image of Regulus dashing around in a scarlet cape and foolishly flinging himself off the neighbor's shed to replicate flying. Something told her that antics of the sort that were very common in Cokeworth – trampling through the neighbors' gardens, riding your bike with no hands at breakneck speeds down the hill behind the veterinarian's office, and building rickety bridges across the narrow creek with branches from fallen trees – were not deemed acceptable behavior within the Black household.

Very quietly, Sirius said, "I think he liked the bit with no parents best of all. A world where you lived without supervision, no one breathing down your neck, no expectations. A world where you did your best and did the right thing. A world without loneliness."

And just like that, the hint of light and hope that had entered the room with James was eradicated. Lily looked to James to see if he would try to divert Sirius's attention once again, but James only watched Sirius with a solemn frown. There was a time to distract and laugh, but there was also a time to grieve, and they had officially reached it.

"You know what I don't understand?" Sirius spit out. "How he could have become such a fucking idiot? All those years growing up, and he would talk about wanting to be good, and look what he does the second he's old enough to make his own decisions."

"It's like a story isn't it. If you make bad choices, the world punishes you for them," Lily said.

"More like, if you make poor choices, Voldemort demolishes you for them," James corrected.

But Sirius was caught up on Lily's comment, mind whirring through the implications. "I think...I think you're right. This world was always too complicated for him. He could never sort out all of the grey areas. There's something...nice about the fact that, in the end, the world operated in just the way that always made sense to him. It wasn't the mindless death and violence we see every day. But cause and effect. Good and evil. Just like his books."

Through the crack at the bottom of the door, a candle lit the hall. Soft footsteps passed by and then descended the stairs, each stomp heavier than the last, like the guest was skipping stairs on the way down to the kitchen. It was probably Oliver Jones, checking to see if dinner had ever been finished. A minute later and more footsteps followed.

The three occupants of the bed remained silent, listening to the footfalls interspersed with the sounds of their own breathing and the unpredictable hooting of an owl outside. Not a delivery owl either. A true wild owl, swooping through the dense forest of the Potter estate, a creature that required no comfort from the darkness of the night because it could recognize a truth humans struggled valiantly to accept: the darkness was every bit as much a part of the human condition, of life, as the light.

"Silas and Harry. Harry and Silas," Lily murmured the names, letting them roll over her tongue to taste the feel of them. "They're good names...for a boy."

James turned to her. "Do you mean?"

"Well, seeing as how we're at an impasse on the name Zeus, why not?" Lily said.

James pouted at the reminder that she would not, despite his many well-argued points, consider naming their son Zeus or any variation relating to thunder, but Sirius turned to stare at her. His eyes were alight with the same manic energy from when he'd raced off on his suicide mission, and it frightened Lily even as she warmed at any sign of life in him.

"You're talking about naming your baby after Regulus?"

Again, Lily repeated, "Why not?"

There was no need to answer. The why not was plain: Regulus had been a death eater, the antithesis of a good person and the very thing they all fought against. He'd surrendered his right to their compassion when he'd thrown his lot in with the bad guys. Outside of this room, Sirius likely didn't expect to see sympathy from his compatriots.

After a long moment, during which Sirius soaked in the immensity of what Lily was offering him, Sirius said, "Not Silas. Silas is...well, it's a the kind of name my mother would have liked. You should choose something plain. Decent. Something your perfectly average muggle might have. Like Harry."

Lily turned to James to see what he thought of the name. In addition to Zeus, James had also suggested his own name as a possibility, and while Lily had always scoffed at men's vain need to see themselves copied in their sons, she'd also thought there would be something sweet about having both her boys named James. Her two James. The current James' brow drew together, but slowly the tension eased, replaced with a smile. "My grandfather's name was Harry, actually."

And like that it was settled. Lily laid a hand on her stomach and, for the first time, thought a name as she addressed her son: _Harry, you are so loved. Mummy loves you. Daddy loves you. Uncle Sirius loves you._ Gently, James stroked her hair. He couldn't quite summon a smile, but he gazed down fondly at where her hand rested. Sirius wasn't looking at her stomach. He was staring straight at them instead, the kind of stare that drove home to Lily just how much James meant to Sirius. No, rather, how much _they_ meant to Sirius. Lacking so much that others took for granted, James had become Sirius's entire world, a world that had expanded with time to include the other Marauders, and now her.

Regulus had been a hole in Sirius's life for some time. The shape of a brother was cut out of his soul, never filled by the rumors of his brother's exploits amongst the death eaters. Now that his brother was truly gone, the hole had widened, stretched. And yet…

There would be Harry. And maybe, just maybe, that would be enough.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you to the guest reviewer who gave me this prompt. I'd** **never considered writing this scenario but it immediately captured my imagination.**

 **I'll be filling at least two more prompts before I move all of my attention to my next multi-chapter story (which is coming along beautifully FYI). I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, and hopefully, I'll have another one-shot out in no time.**


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